Three Near Misses
6-7 APRIL 1945
THREE NEAR MISSES
Joining the fight off Okinawa was USS WESSON (DE-184). Destroyer escorts were a product of WWII, designed specifically for escorting ships against submarine attack. Some DEs were powered by oil-burning steam turbines, but WESSON bore the other common power plant, a diesel-electric system originally designed for railroad locomotives. Below decks, Electrician’s Mate First Class Charles Sullivan stood his watch in the starboard motor room, where large electric motors spun the shafts, powered by electricity from two large diesel engines just ahead in the engine spaces. Sullivan’s shipmate, the ship’s clerk, stood his watch on the bridge, relaying commands to the engine spaces.
When the massive kikisui raid appeared overhead April 6th, one kamikaze made a dive toward WESSON. WESSON’s gunners opened but seeing the suicider heading straight for the DE’s stack, a call came to the engine spaces directly below, “Sully, it’s been nice knowing you!” The familiar voice quickly relayed the situation, unseen from the engine room, and in the second it took Sully’s life to flash before his eyes, he realized his number was up!
But suddenly a Marine Corps F4U Corsair appeared! The pilot chased the kamikaze, persisting until it exploded mid-air. Debris fell beside WESSON, narrowly missing. The Corsair then passed low over the DE, wagging its wings!
The next day WESSON was again in the thick of the fighting. Sullivan was in his rack, recovering from the fatigue of near-constant General Quarters. Again the claxon sounded! Normally Sullivan would grab his pants and run in his underwear up one deck and forward through the machine shop to his station. But this time he was just angry enough at the constant GQ that he paused several seconds to pull his pants onto his waist. Suddenly a massive CRASH knocked him to the deck! A kamikaze slammed into WESSON amidships destroying the machine shop and killing the sailors therein. Had Sully not paused to pull up his trousers, he would have been running through the machine shop at that very instant himself! A dutiful EM1c Sullivan now ran past the twisted and burning amidships wreckage toward his battle station. On the way, he spotted another friend, “Frenchy,” sprawled on the deck, blood spurting from a chest wound. “Save me, Sully!” called Frenchy as the Electrician’s Mate sprinted by. “I can’t!” shouted Sullivan, knowing his first duty was his battle station.
Thinking he had left his friend to die, Sullivan was plagued with guilt for decades after the war. Only when reunions of WESSON’s crew began years later was he reintroduced to Frenchy, whom a Corpsman had saved shortly after Sullivan dashed past!
Watch for more “Today in Naval History” 11 APR 23
CAPT James Bloom, Ret.
Department of the Navy, Naval History Division. Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 8 “W-Z”. Washington, DC: GPO, 1981, pp. 205-06.
Oral history of EM1c Charles Sullivan, taken at the Pennsylvania Military Museum, Boalsburg, PA, 8 March 2017.
ADDITIONAL NOTES: WESSON survived this kamikaze attack to finish the war in Tokyo Bay as part of the fleet accepting the Japanese surrender. EM1c Sullivan served aboard for her entire career, from her commissioning 11 November 1943 (Sullivan’s birthday) until she left Naval service 24 June 1946. WESSON served twenty more years with the Italian Navy until being mothballed, and ultimately scrapped, in 1972. Like most of WWII’s DEs, WESSON was named for a naval hero. LTJG Morgan Wesson died 13 November 1942 when his ship, USS ATLANTA (CL-51), was battered and sunk off the Solomon Island at the Battle of Guadalcanal.
USS Wesson DE-184